this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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The ISA guarantees that a program compiled for it can run on any of these vendor designs. For example native binaries for Android run on any SoC from any vendor with the ARM ISA compiled for. The situation is exactly the same as with x86, Intel and AMD. Their core designs are very different yet binaries compiled for x86 run on either Intel or AMD, and on any of their models, even across different architectures. E.g. a binary compiled for x86_64 would run on AMD Zen 2, as well as Intel Skylake, as well as AMD Bulldozer.
It's better in that it's free to use. Anyone making a chip implementing RISC-V doesn't have to pay ARM or Intel for a license. Not that Intel sells them anyway.
The fragmentation issue might become a new problem. With that said we definitely want to move away from the only usable cores using ARM or x86, neither of which we can design and manufacture without the blessing of two corpos, one of which is a proven monopoly abuser.
How did AMD get the rights to build these CPUs? It is the only competitor it seems.
To sell into the US government in the 70s you had to ensure your parts could be sourced from a second company. That way, if you had supply problems, the government would just got to the second source.
AMD was a second source for the 8086.